Around the Shop

June 15, 2012

Appleton U360 award

“Frontiers in Opthalmology” is a winner in Utopia’s 2012 U360 Design Competition. It was one of 11 winning projects chosen out of a field of over 300 entries. The piece was designed by Visual Dialogue and printed by Capital Offset for Harvard Medical School.

Entries were evaluated on overall communication, creative expression, and execution, including environmental impact.

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June 13, 2012

eBook creation

In the words of  prepress team member Dan Weiss: “EBooks are growing increasingly popular as more people get dedicated e-Readers like Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook; or multi-function devices like the iPad and iPhone, and Android devices.

“To create our first eBook, we started with the InDesign file supplied to us for the print version. Some re-formatting was needed to make sure the text flow was correct. Charts needed to be converted to graphics and anchored to the correct position in the text.

“Since an eBook will reflow based on the size of the device and size of the font the user has selected, traditional page numbers are irrelevant. What is on page 204 of the physical book might be page 348 on a Kindle with default display settings; or 516 if viewed on a larger font size. For that reason any references to specific page numbers need to be changed to the closest chapter or section location. The entire Table of Contents therefore needs to be recreated.

“Starting from InDesign we were able to create an industry standard ePub file. This file type works on most devices and can be freely distributed and shared. It is distributed by most of the major eBook stores including Apple’s iBookstore and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, who add copyright protection if desired. To support Amazon, we used conversion software to change our ePub file to Amazon’s own proprietary format, Mobi. With an ePub file and a Mobi file, our client is ready to publish to all of the major online eBook stores!”

Photo by Dan Marshall.

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May 7, 2012

Strike-through varnish

We used a strike-through varnish technique for the first time with our new press. We put down a solid metallic first, followed by a matte varnish in the desired pattern, followed by overall aqueous. The strike-through varnish reacts with the aqueous, bringing out the underlying pattern.

Categories: Around the Shop

May 2, 2012

Ansel Adams catalog

Capital Offset has just finished printing “Ansel Adams, At the Water’s Edge”, a 176-page catalog to accompany the upcoming exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum. Plant manager Aaron Constant created 120 tritone images, printing at 300 line screen. Curator Phillip Prodger says this will be a unique exhibition of Ansel Adams’ work focusing on the artist’s work with water in all its forms.

Project supervisor Susan McNally, pressman Michael Warren and Aaron show of the first press approval sheet to kick off a week of printing.

Susan and designer Peter Blaiwas pose with the first folded signature.

PEM photography curator Phillip Prodger reviewing a press form on the first day of printing.

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March 23, 2012

Wall Street Journal article

We were recently awarded a contract to print IBM’s 2012 CEO Study  and were featured (briefly) in the March 21 Wall Street Journal. IBM, with the Small Business Administration, recently started a new program (Supplier Connection) allowing small businesses to connect with large corporations. In the article Kurt describes the process.

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March 21, 2012

Inking up the S40

Roy Shoults loading the new S40 with ink. Roy is one of two lead operators during our day shift.

Photo by Dan Marshall.

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